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Essay about The Rise of the Papacy

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The Rise of the Papacy

Barry Blankenship

CHHI 301 - History of the Christian Church I
Professor – Dr. Jeffrey S. Mayfield
February 20, 2012

The Fall of A Great Empire and the Rise of the Papacy
Before the fall of the Roman Empire you must stop and look at the power that was held within the millions of miles of land, building, people, cities, kings, and customs. The Roman Empire was not known for being just another city or empire but it was known for its strength, power and victories in the times of conflict and wars. The roman empire was built up to what it was right up until the fall by powerful kings and rulers who never imagined that the once untouchable empire would one day fall but not everyone had that same mind set of …show more content…

According to Webster’s Dictionary a patriarch is, one of the scriptural fathers of the human race or of the Hebrew people, a man who is father or founder, the oldest member or representative of a group, a venerable old man, a man who is head of a patriarchy, any of the bishops of the ancient or Eastern Orthodox sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem or the ancient and Western see of Rome with authority over other bishops, the head of any of various Eastern churches, a Roman Catholic bishop next in rank to the pope with purely titular or with metropolitan jurisdiction and a Mormon of the Melchizedek priesthood empowered to perform the ordinances of the church and pronounce blessings within a stake or prescribed jurisdiction. The authority given to the archbishops made the most significant bishops throughout all the empire. The archbishops were spread all throughout the land including Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch but the issue in this situation was that the east contained four out of the five archbishops while the west simply had one archbishop, so there was not equal balance to both sides. A great division began to take place between the two sides as time passed and their political views as well as their cultural views began to shift and changes began to take place to separate the two sides. Throughout everything taking place Rome took precedents over all other areas as the theological headquarters per say. There

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